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Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

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Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#321

Post by macintux »

giobox wrote: post #279
wwweston wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even in 2022, most manufacturer haven't still figured out how to do firmware update without using USB drives. This... makes sense to me? Physical access and automotive service go hand-in-hand. Over-the-air presents update hell and security issues.

Why does it not present hell in any other use case, such as computers, phones and games consoles, or actual cars on sale today? Why aren't Tesla or Rivian owners collectively going crazy - there are over 1 million Teslas receiving updates approximately every two weeks? These arguments do not appear to be borne by any evidence in reality. It's not like physical car repair places have some amazing flawless track record…

It was several years before I was completely comfortable upgrading my iPhone without backing it up first, and Apple had decades of system software experience and complete control over the hardware.

Auto manufacturers are much, much worse than Apple at software, and I suspect they have less confidence all of their embedded electronics work correctly under all circumstances, although that’s just speculation on my part. From what I’ve heard about canbus, it’s a bit of a mess.

Anyway, I can completely understand why traditional auto makers are less comfortable allowing a car to be updated anywhere at any time, and why they might be less competent at securing the update mechanism.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#322

Post by mrobins »

cercatrova wrote: post #128
johannes1234321 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> imagine car manufacturers are somewhat tired of always building HUDs and in vehicle control systems. So gradually standardizing on a way to take all the displays/touchscreens in a vehicle and let them be run by Carplay seems like the future. What is then remaining as distinctive feature of a car vendor? The design? With their custom entertainment system they can confront they driver with their own brand identity an…

Who buys cars for their HUD? I buy cars for their performance, miles per gallon (or electric equivalent), brand value, etc.

If you mean the infotainment system or head unit, I think lots of people place a very high value on usability. Depending on much you rely on navigation or use apps for audio, high quality UI goes a long way.

Fortunately if you also want to prioritize performance, mileage, etc., CarPlay makes it a lot easier to tolerate a lackluster factory interface.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#323

Post by hedora »

cercatrova wrote: post #128
johannes1234321 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> imagine car manufacturers are somewhat tired of always building HUDs and in vehicle control systems. So gradually standardizing on a way to take all the displays/touchscreens in a vehicle and let them be run by Carplay seems like the future. What is then remaining as distinctive feature of a car vendor? The design? With their custom entertainment system they can confront they driver with their own brand identity an…

Who buys cars for their HUD? I buy cars for their performance, miles per gallon (or electric equivalent), brand value, etc.

After buying a RAM, I carefully consider software quality.

Sometimes the GPS azimuth data gets out of sync, which is annoying. However, the dealbreaker is that the transmission has some software bug where it overheats if you drive for more than an hour or so in certain circumstances. (Turning it off and waiting five minutes reboots it enough to get it to do whatever it needs to do to cool itself off.)

Sometimes we get a dreaded error message like this on the dashboard: "Drive to destination without switching into reverse or turning off. The vehicle might not turn back on.", which means the drivetrain computer cannot talk to the transmission, and it is stuck in a random gear.

Also, there was a safety recall software update. Applying it broke the state machine transitions for the push button ignition switch. (If you see a Ram owner accidentally re-start their engine after parking, this is why.)

Other Fiats (or whatever they renamed themselves to) are apparently on the same drivetrain software platform and have similar problems. All of the above things happened in warranty and none are fixable, from what we can gather.

It also had a bug where sometimes the cruise control wouldn't disengage unless you stood on the brake pedal while forcing the shift knob past an interlock and into neutral. They fixed that with the software update that broke the ignition switch.

We're eagerly awaiting the day when we can upgrade to an EV pickup truck from another company.

The GMC we had before the Ram was even worse. It was even more likely to strand itself, and the ABS / traction control liked to unexpectedly engage. Also, we had many mechanical issues. Like RAM, we had difficulty getting GMC to honor the warranty (with Anyway, if the radio is buggy, don't buy the car.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#324

Post by AlotOfReading »

jononomo wrote: post #311
AlotOfReading wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has already publicly torpedoed their relationship with one major manufacturer (Hyundai/Kia). It's suspected that the same thing has happened less publicly with others like Nissan. They've supposedly been talking with Toyota for a bit, but that's always been a weird choice because Toyota leadership has never fully bought into the idea of electric vehicles and SV development styles, nor are they likely to enjoy b…

I don't really care about electric vehicles either -- I think Toyota has its head on straight in this regard. Hybrids are fantastic. Electric vehicles are an important subset of the market, but Toyota makes vehicles that people rely on in the remotest and roughest parts of the world. If you're running drugs in the mountains of El Salvador or running from rebels in the Congo then you want a Toyota, not a Tesla.

I saw my share of Toyota Prius's and light trucks when I was working in Central Asia/Siberia, but I'm not sure it's relevant to the apple car discussion. It's generally thought that project titan is an electric vehicle (and my limited knowledge of the project from their various efforts to recruit me supports this), nor are ruggedized products Apple's traditional market. Offroad capabilities also don't make much sense in the context of a consumer-focused self-driving vehicle given the limited utility and difficulty compared even to on-road usage. It's more of a DoD research area at the moment.

So Toyota makes a strange bedfellow for Apple here.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#325

Post by dalyons »

KerrAvon wrote: post #299
smm11 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today I learned that people pick a car based on how well it integrates with a cell phone.

In the US, lack of CarPlay really only removes Tesla from consideration at this point. Everything else, from Ferrari to Kia, supports CarPlay. Is there another holdout I’m missing?

Weirdly I think rivian too. They think they can be better at car media software than apple - they’re wrong, and I hope they change their mind.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#326

Post by astrange »

dalyons wrote: post #267
dhosek wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last few times I’ve rented a car it’s had CarPlay and based on those experiences, the next time I buy a car, it must have CarPlay. The experience without it is just so poor (and don’t get me started on how ridiculously bad the experience of pairing bluetooth is in my parent’s car which requires a mix of voice commands and button presses in a completely undiscoverable way).

yup! me too. Thats how i ended up buying a new car instead of a recent second-hand version of the same. Carplay was an absolute non-negotiable must have.

You can just get an older car and replace the radio.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#327

Post by scarface74 »

bottlepalm wrote: post #318
scarface74 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is more like Samsung. Decent hardware and subpar software and user interfaces.

The point is Samsung does not control the Android software. Regardless which car do you think has better software and UI than Tesla?

Android is open source (enough), Samsung can and does make changes to Android to support its own hardware with its own UI.

I’ll take any car with CarPlay over the Tesla interface.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#328

Post by scarface74 »

bee_rider wrote: post #320
scarface74 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes just like every startup. “We had 1% of the market and grew to 2%. We doubled in the last year and are growing much faster than the incumbents”. In what rational world should Tesla have a PE of 20x GM?

If they are priced like a startup and growing like a startup, that might indicate something crazy about how startups are priced, but it isn't unique to Tesla.

Tesla is a public company, and if you haven’t checked, startups and recently public former unicorns aren’t doing too well these days.

Re: Apple Car: Bad Idea After All

#330

Post by jen20 »

smm11 wrote: post #212
robotcapital wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another anecdote, but this is exactly how I chose my last car. I went to CarMax, filtered by CarPlay integration, and then chose from what was available. In fact, the lack of CarPlay integration is one of the main reasons I didn't consider a Tesla at the time. From basic things like a snappy interface and keeping my podcasts in sync, to suggesting the destination based on the recent maps search I did from my phone on…

Today I learned that people pick a car based on how well it integrates with a cell phone.

70+% of US car buyers per the Apple presentation where this was discussed.

It’s absolutely order qualifying for me.

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